Hiroshima Read online

  Our teacher, a woman, told us, “From now on Japan will be friendly with the Americans, and we must make ourselves likeable.” I thought it really strange. Until just recently we’d been taught to make fun of them: “British and U.S. Beasts! Damn Yanks!” Praise of America, an about-face, confused us.

  For Akira and me, school life was unbearably tough. We were the targets of bullying by the young brats, hardened in their hostility to outsiders. Akira was polite by nature. Watching him being chased about the school and bullied in all sorts of ways, I trembled with anger. I too was surrounded and made fun of: they pointed at the spots on the back of my head where burns had finally scabbed over—“Baldy! Baldy!” And they hit me just for the fun of it. My scabs broke, bloody pus went flying and ran down my neck, giving off a stink, and they laughed at me. I got so hot all the blood in my body reversed course, but I clenched my fists and endured it. One on one, I’d never have lost to them, but when they attacked in a group, I was truly mortified.

  Bullying continued, not only in the world of the children but in the adult world, too. With Uncle Y.’s son and Akira, our household had grown to six, and the mother-in-law of the M. family that rented us the room didn’t like it that Mom did as she pleased. She took the lead, summoning the neighborhood wives and falsely accusing Mom of stealing an umbrella. “This woman’s an ungrateful alley cat from the city!” Screaming at the top of her lungs, the mother-in-law grabbed Mom’s arm and pulled her outside: “I’m taking this woman to the police to have her locked up!” She didn’t accept Mom’s suggestion, “Whether I stole it or not is easy to tell. Simply search our one nine-by-twelve room. Be my guest!” Instead, saying, “I can’t stand alley cats,” she dragged Mom to the police substation on the Eba riverbank. Burning mad inside, I followed after them.

  At the substation, fishermen and children who’d somehow heard that “They’ve caught a thief!” surrounded her, and Mom was exposed as if a freak show at the circus. People who came to see shouted abuse at Mom: “Gotta watch those city folks!” “Can’t let your guard down with city folks!” Mom did her best to explain things to the police, but the police believed M.’s mother-in-law and blamed Mom. Had I been an adult at the time, I might have killed all those people on the spot. That’s how angry I was. Mortified and trembling, Mom was forced to sign a statement pledging “I won’t steal the umbrella again”—she hadn’t stolen it in the first place—and, fingers trembling in anger, stamp it with her seal. That night she cried late into the night, shaking with anger: “I hate it. To be called a thief! I won’t forget this day as long as I live!” The sight of Mom sad and trembling engraved itself on my sight forever. The Eba folks who bullied Mom were unbearably hateful.

  In Eba I saw humanity stripped naked. I saw Japanese people stripped naked. “Democracy,” “Charity,” “Truth,” “Help the weak,” “Extend the hand of charity to the needy”—what hollow, empty words and slogans! How can humans say such pretty words? I saw the true nature of the Japanese people: lording it over the weak, bullying them unmercifully. Peel back the veneer, and they reveal their ugly nature and pounce. War in particular exacerbates man’s ugliness, and it suddenly flares up and spreads. That’s why I can’t forgive those who start wars that plunge human beings into a condition lower than animals.

  In Eba our family was bullied, elbowed, chased. Mom said, “Sooner or later, they’ll kill us.” The family took as a sort of motto, “Let’s get out of this hateful place as soon as we can.” At night we went to the army barracks that had collapsed, diligently scavenging boards and wood. We wanted to build a house as soon as possible, and we looked forward to the day we’d be able to leave this town behind.

  Tomoko Dies

  At school there were no instructional materials, so we received a lot of instruction outdoors, observing the plants in the fields. When the weather was good, the teacher took the whole class to the field at the end of the trolley line in Eba; it had been the army rifle range. Each time we got to the field, I fondly remembered getting absorbed in hunting grasshoppers with Eiko and Susumu. When we entered the field, we came to the place where, day and night for nearly three months, the fires cremating corpses had burned. Bones were piled up nearly six feet high, a dozen scattered piles. We pupils cut nonchalantly through the piles of bones to get to where we were going. The skulls piled up on either side seemed to be glaring at us.

  The local brats picked out a skull and started playing catch with it. The others copied them quickly, and skulls flew through the air. For children who had survived the days of the atomic bomb, a skull was simply an object. Moreover, they used skulls for soccer balls and kicked them, and the skulls bounced about the field. I didn’t count the skulls piled up, but I think more than a thousand corpses had been cremated. Looking at these heaped-up skulls, I discovered something. Every last skull has an expression. Each one expressed an emotion—joy, anger, humor, pathos. The skulls had simply been left there, exposed to the elements.

  One day I was walking on the road past the field, and lots of people were on the embankment, looking down and muttering. I wondered, “What on earth?” and climbed up the embankment. My jaw dropped. Four or five U.S. army bulldozers and steamrollers were clattering about. On the edges were several jeeps, carrying U.S. soldiers keeping an eye on things. The bulldozers scraped up dirt from the sides, pushed it to the piles of bones, and covered them with dirt. The steamrollers clambered on top of the piles, crushing the bones and burying them deep. The bulldozers crisscrossed, and before we knew it, the separate piles of bones had become one level field. It was a brilliant demonstration of American mechanized power.

  The old folks atop the embankment brought their hands together at chest level and chanted the Buddhist prayer, “All Hail, Amida Buddha.” One person muttered, “I wish I had more gumption! It’s butchery to use machines to crush those bones!” The arrogance of the beefy, red-faced U.S. soldiers chomping on chewing gum as they operated the bulldozers turned my stomach, too. Had Hiroshima asked the U.S. army to bury the piles of bones? Or, feeling its own deep guilt for dropping the atomic bomb, had the United States buried the evidence, the piles of bones left exposed to the rain? I don’t know. Today the site where the ground was leveled and the bones of thousands were buried is the schoolyard of Eba Middle School. Dig in the schoolyard even now, and you’ll turn up tons of bones. From atop the embankment, I witnessed their burial there, so I know.

  Winter winds blew, and it turned much colder. Lacking winter clothing, we wrapped raggedy underwear about our bodies and wore summer clothes on top. There were tears in the seat of my pants, with open holes, and we had no underpants, so flesh was exposed, plain to see. The local toughs poked their fingers into the holes and made fun of me, laughing uproariously. My skin was dry from malnutrition, I had large boils on my legs, and the pus ran down my legs.

  Day after day Akira and I searched for food morning and night. Mom worked late into the night and came home each night exhausted. Ko¯ji used the welding skills he’d learned as a student-soldier as a temporary worker at a city factory. The whole family kept up its determined struggle to survive, but our poverty didn’t change. We thought that since all Japan was starving, there was nothing to be done about it, although we knew that some people were living a totally different life.

  The man next door worked at the Army hospital, and virtually every day he brought home unopened five-gallon cans of tempura oil. The aroma of fish and vegetable tempura came floating on the wind, and it ate at us. At night he’d go out and bring back rice, wheat, beans, fish, and cans of beef and stash it away. I thought he brought all this home from the Army stores, but whatever the case, his family ate very well. He brought chickens home and in our sight cut off their heads, drained the blood, put them in boiling water, plucked the feathers, and made chicken tempura. Seeing him eat it, we were consumed with envy. The next day his children brought chicken bones to school for a snack and ostentatiously smacking their lips, sucked the marrow. Our mouths watered. Bo
th during and after the war, those attached to the military had it good.

  In Eba at the time, daily conversation included, for example, the murder of two children, part of a group that came to steal crops from the fields, who’d had their skulls split open by the farmer’s wooden sword. The desperate struggle continued, with atomic bomb orphans and starving people coming to Eba in search of food. War and the atomic bomb: it was hell if you died; it was hell if you lived.

  One such day baby Tomoko on my back was peevish and wouldn’t stop crying. I didn’t know what to do. I changed her diaper and tried to humor her, but she kept crying. While preparing the evening stew, I set Tomoko down on the blanket and kept humoring her, but she wouldn’t stop crying. Even Mom, when she came home, said, “Something must be wrong. After supper I’ll take her to the clinic.” With the whole family gathered around the stew and eating, Tomoko’s voice gradually grew faint, and she became quiet. We were relieved, thinking she’d fallen asleep. With supper over, I lay down beside Tomoko’s blanket, took her hand, and was shocked. It was ice cold. Quickly I called Mom. Mom picked Tomoko up, whispered, “She’s dead!” and went silent.

  Born into the carnage of the atomic bomb, Tomoko lived a short life of four months. The continuous crying that day was her voice burning her life’s last embers. We didn’t know the cause of death—Malnutrition? The effect of radioactivity? Mom stood abruptly, said, “I’m going to the greengrocer’s!” and went off. I simply sat there, gazing at Tomoko’s face, which was now ashen. Mom returned carrying a fruit crate. She said, “It took some begging, but I finally got one” and silently cleaned the box. Then she dressed Tomoko in her prettiest clothes and placed her body in the box. How long that night was before the silent dark grew light!

  The next day we ran about collecting pieces of wood. We placed the box holding Tomoko’s body on a borrowed pushcart, loaded anything that would burn, and headed for the Eba shore. At the bleak wintry shore we dug a hole, spread the wood, set the fruit crate on top, and lit the fire. The cold winter sea was rough, and the smoke burning Tomoko danced in the cold wind and was sucked up into the sky. Mom stared at the flames. Silently, we made sure the fire didn’t go out. We burned all the wood we’d brought, but when we stirred the embers, Tomoko’s body was still not fully cremated, so we rushed about the shore, collecting driftwood to keep the fire going. I felt keenly how much wood it took to cremate even a baby’s body.

  Silently, Mom picked up Tomoko’s small, thin bones and dropped them into an empty can.[1] With a fierce, stern expression on her face, Mom urged us on, and we headed for home. The winter ocean beat harshly against the shore, and the cold wind pummeled us and blew past. In her own struggle to survive, Mom hadn’t even the energy left to cry.

  Together, Mom and the rest of us walked into the strong headwind.

  Two-fisted Champ

  Having found work, Uncle Y. came for the son he’d left in our care, and our household shrank to four. Tomoko had died, and I was forlorn; I had lost all I had to live for. It was hard for me to walk past a woman with a baby on her back. It was tough when I caught the lingering sweet smell of mother’s milk and memories came back of the days when I warmed my back carrying Tomoko and fed her the thick soup.

  At the time, the wood and boards that we scavenged busily at night from the collapsed Army barracks piled up, and our hopes of building a hut materialized. We asked a carpenter acquaintance of Mom’s to build it in the burned-out waste of Takajo¯-machi, where Uncle H. lived. Loading the wood onto a large cart, we hauled it laboriously through the ruins. Our hearts leapt as we watched our house go up. We savored our joy at escaping Eba, the town where we had nothing but bitter, sad, and hateful memories. The only thing I’d learned at Eba’s elementary school was the multiplication tables.

  Erected in the burned-out ruins of Takajo¯, our house didn’t have sliding rain doors or sliding screens. We separated the rooms and kept the wind from blowing through by hanging mats made of straw. It was a crude hut, but we were absolutely delighted to call it home. In the candlelight on the night we moved in, the faces of Mom and Ko¯ji and Akira were flushed with excitement.

  Our house looked out over a vast sweep of ruins. At night, lanterns were alight in the scattered shacks; it was just as if fireflies were out. When night deepened and we lay on the blankets, straining our ears, it seemed we could hear the pulse of the reviving Hiroshima. There was nothing in the burned-out waste to block sound, so the horns of ships leaving Ujina Harbor off in the distance boomed as if they were nearby. We drank in the sound: “Wonder where that ship is going—abroad?” From the yards of Hiroshima Station came the sound of freight cars coupling; engines blew their steam whistles—Choo! Choo!—and left the station. “Wonder what that freight train’s carrying?” The night train went through—clickety-clack—on the main east-west line. We pictured it to ourselves: “Wonder who’s on the night train? Maybe it’s full of repatriated soldiers. It’s going to Osaka and Tokyo. Osaka and Tokyo: wonder what shape they’re in.” Winter pilgrimages began, with ascetics dressed in white, rosaries around their necks, beating fan-shaped drums—tap, tap, tap—and the sound of feet tramping through the burned-out waste. Night after night we fell asleep with a sense of security because human beings were out there and we had the feeling that Hiroshima was reviving at a good pace.

  Akira and I tilled the burned-out waste and worked hard preparing a field for planting. When we removed tiles and turned the soil over, skulls emerged. In the field we planted all sorts of edibles according to the season and worked early and late to produce food. For fertilizer, naturally, we used the night soil from our own outhouse; if we weren’t careful, someone would steal it in the night. Times really were tough.

  I’d get up early, go to the trolley street, and wait for horse-drawn carts to pass—at that time they were the only transport. When the horses shat, I’d rush right out with a dustpan, scoop up the horseshit, bring it back, spread it on the field, and fertilize the soil. Even in collecting horseshit, if you didn’t look sharp, someone else would beat you to it. In this way we made our own the science we had learned at school; the knowledge of how to grow crops—that, too, we applied.

  It took a year and a half, but the burns on the back of my head and neck finally healed. I’d simply kept applying squash and cucumber juice to them. But the back of my head was bald, and that was a source of humiliation. To the toughs, I was a target of ridicule—“Baldy! Baldy!”

  Akira and I transferred to Honkawa Elementary School, a three-story structure of reinforced concrete on the riverbank opposite the Atomic Bomb Dome. Since the building was at the epicenter, walls burned and collapsed, ceilings fell and large holes opened up, and window frames twisted. The classrooms were covered with broken tiles. They had no desks, no chairs, no blackboards. In winter the cold wind blew through, and dust and snowflakes danced. As for the playground, the iron beams of the auditorium, twisted like pretzels, twined and hung over it.

  Since there were no desks, we used concrete blocks instead. We sat astride them and wrote with pencil stubs on flimsy paper. Our pencils caught on the bumps of the concrete, the paper tore, and holes opened up. When it began to rain, we rushed to a corner of the classroom for shelter and waited for the rain to stop. Five heads clustered around a single textbook, and we argued—“I can’t see!” “Yes, you can!” I hadn’t the foggiest idea what we were studying. Exposed to the cold wind, our bodies went ice-cold. Fingers turned numb and wouldn’t move. Teeth chattered. I often marveled that such cold was bearable. Taking the cold into consideration, the teachers chose when to announce, “Exercise time!” We bent our knees, then straightened up, tightened our fists, then flung our hands into the air, warming up by way of exercise. The cold was really unbearable.

  When I transferred to this grade school, I scolded myself, “Never lose a fistfight!” Earlier, at Eba Elementary, I’d been humiliated by being attacked by a group of the local pupils and had resolved never to let that happen again. This ti
me, I’d fight all out.

  It’s in children’s nature to zero in on someone’s weakness and show no mercy attacking. Among those in my class was a guy who targeted the scar on the back of my head. He was much bigger than average and always had two or three henchmen at his side. In the very middle of the schoolyard I gave that guy a thorough drubbing. Children’s fights are decided simply: someone gets a nosebleed and starts to cry. Since it happened in the middle of the schoolyard, all the pupils saw it. Word soon spread, and leadership of the pack passed to me. I knew how to use my fists. In a swarm of children, I’d select the largest as target and give that fellow a thorough beating, no matter how I was set on by those around; the group would quickly shrink and dissolve. The henchmen feared me and stopped saying anything about my scar. Suddenly I was idolized as two-fisted champ, and everyone kept a wary eye on me. It was just like the fight for the status of alpha monkey in a zoo.

  A strange vehicle began appearing in the schoolyard. It was a station wagon. The upper half of the body was emerald green, and the lower half had a wood grain pattern on a cream-colored base. It drove into the schoolyard, took one turn, and stopped. All of us watching from classrooms rushed up to it, stroking the body, peeking under it, and casting longing looks at this strange, foreign car. On the license plate was written: ABCC.

  I learned later that ABCC was an acronym for Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. The Americans entered Hiroshima one month after the dropping of the atomic bomb and established the ABCC in a corner of the Japan Red Cross Hospital. It investigated the effects and damage that the atomic bomb had on material objects and on the human body and secretly collected atomic bomb data. Honkawa Elementary School was at Ground Zero, and children who’d survived the atomic bomb came to it from a broad swath of the city, so it was ideal for collecting data. They were able easily to determine the condition of the children who’d survived.